Causes And Risk Factors Of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
August 8, 2019
A healthy liver contains a limited amount of fat. When fat accumulates to over five percent of the liver's weight, patients have a fatty liver. A fatty liver can induce an inflammatory response, which causes liver tissue damage. The body repairs this damage with scar tissue, which can progress to cirrhosis and cause the liver to fail. Symptoms of fatty liver disease typically do not manifest until late-stage liver scarring. Most cases are discovered with a routine blood test or when the liver appears abnormal on imaging tests conducted for other reasons. To confirm the diagnosis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, further blood tests, more imaging tests, and a liver biopsy may be performed.